Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Dr Rana Ather, a Pakistani-origin American citizen has now moved the Supreme Court of the United States against a lower court judgment passed against him which is being called discriminated and illegal.

The main offence of Ather was that he had provided medical facilities to thousands of Americans and served the country for more than 25 years. Dr Ather was a popular medical practitioner among the allergy affected American patients but at the end the government of USA accused him of a flimsy offence only to kick him out of the country because he was a Muslim and a Pakistani.

The petition filed in the USA apex court, now available with Daily Times, says that there are a lot of flaws and injustices in the lower court judgment that should be now repealed only to set the record straight. The petitioners have also asked the American apex court to take up his case as earlier as possible to dispense him justice which is his basic right as also enshrined in the constitution of the US.

The constitution of the USA encapsulates that there should not be any discrimination to a citizen of the USA on the basis of race, colour and religion basis and as a custodian of basic rights the apex court must take up this petition and set aside the judgment passed against the petitioner.

According to the petition On Jan 2, 2004, a secret service and a FBI agent came to Dr Athar’s house and they interviewed his daughter about a caricature of a protester holding a banner against President George Bush. Dr Rana after having lived in the same city for 25 considered this to be highly inappropriate.

On Jan 24, 2004, at 4.45 p.m. Dr. Rana was extremely busy in his office and suddenly 19 FBI agents with guns and badges raided the office under the pretext of “possible medicaid fraud” and went on a spree of confiscation of records.

They started to fill boxes with anything and everything they could. They were actually looking for stuff which had nothing to with medicaid or medical practice. They even ripped his false ceiling in the office and went on a total rampage All of the staff was relieved, patients were sent home and19 agents, ransacked the office, they were looking for guns and ammunition. The head of the FBI team I agent Mr. Hoover and Agent Sutherland spent seven hours in Dr. Rana’s personal office searching for something.

They overturned everything and confiscated his personal belongings including his passport, photo albums, airline tickets, letters from friends, personal diaries, they seemed to be very interested and focused on his Islamic books of which he had many an issue of Times with the cover saying Bomb, and his flight manuals along with a passport with multiple entries to Saudi Arabia and the UAE were the centre of their attention.

The following day they called him at the FBI office in Midland Texas where they grilled him about Jihad, bombs his support for colleges and schools and mosques he built in more than one location, his association with religious organisations and what he did as the President of the Muslim Association of West Texas and his hunting weapons, his childhood in Quetta Pakistan and his friendship with some people from Quetta he knew.

Agent Hoover accused him of writing a threatening letter to President George Bush, but they didn’t have anything to show although they informed him that he was looking at 200 years behind bars.

Their motives were soon apparent as they chased him 24/7 for the next nine months. Dr. Rana consulted a local Attorney, Bob Leheay, who arranged a meeting with Mark Roomberg, The Assistant US Attorney in Midland, to find out what exactly where they up to. Mark Roomberg had nothing to show them. He talked in circles, he believed there was about 30000 US dollars of fraudulent billings. But he had no evidence to show them. He gave him the option of admitting to fraud, that he will keep things all hushed up and he will spend one year in jail.

Dr Rana was outraged and did not hesitate in reflecting it to him he dared him to see him in court. Dr. Rana researched and found the best criminal defence attorney in Texas and reached Mike Ramsey from Houston Texas, who after listening to him and looking at the relevant documents concluded that they are fishing for something other than Medicaid fraud.

He reassured him that the accusation was frivolous and the government did not waste time for mere US$30,000 in five years of billing which was close to five million dollars.

The FBI agents kept chasing his car from his house to his office and to the mosque routinely. They contacted everybody that he spoke to on the phone his emails were hacked uniformed and plain clothed people followed him everywhere. They visited most of his neighbours, friends, colleagues and relatives all over the country, Dr Rana found gory accounts of such activities afterwords.

Most of the people he knew were scared to associate with him and shunned him when they could and given the circumstances he understood their behaviour. Few of his employees quit under pressure from the FBI interviews. The doctor further said: “We often needed patient charts that were taken away by the FBI. An agent named Steve Frank used to bring these records to the office when we needed them to continue patient care. He asked me to take a lie detector’s test. I agreed but the test was cancelled because of equipment glitch. The last time Mr. Steve French came to Dr. Rana’s office he told him that they did not have anything but they had other reservations and asked him for a lie detector’s test again which the doctor refused refused as he found no reason for him to be taking a lie detector’s test .This was almost nine months after they raided his office.

He was exhausted. Everything around him had affected his family, practice, and finances and became a huge psychological trauma.

Then one day they showed up and arrested him. He was released on hefty bail but the prosecutor filed a motion for stay and had his bail cancelled by a “senior judge ” under a laughable pretext, but primarily locking their victory in trial by limiting his access to materials from his office to fight his case.

According to him and those attending the trial, it was mockery of justice. Dr Rana was not even in the States for some of the time. They accused him of billings that he was working in Pakistan at Shifa International Hospital. Jurors were briefed as this was the trial of a terrorist, a grand jury was initially shown false material to obtain indictment .

They weren’t allowed to bring key witnesses, they were not allowed to present facts. All their motions were denied and his attorneys who had very little interaction with him failed and lost the case, in jury deliberation some jury members conjectured his support for Al Qaida.

The doctor further said his punishment was time served during the trial he was freed, but placed under supervision. He requested permission to leave the country which they happily granted for the first time in 15 years of the court’s history, their objective of clipping his wings and fatally wounding his soul achieved, no practice of medicine, no support of charities back home, one less Muslim with means of helping others.

Then they filed an appeal, in 20 minutes they upheld the lower court’s decision ignoring many flaws in the district court’s decision. They filed a Writ Certiorari in the Supreme Court which was not heard. They filed a writ of habeas corpus which was accepted for hearing but his attorney, Don Flanary from Goldstein Goldstein and Hilley, informed him that the honorable judge was “angry” and his safe exit from the court room cannot be guaranteed, all his friends and family members did not allow him to return to the same court in front of the same judge who was also “angry”. So, in this way, a healer of hundreds of thousands of Americans, some of whom called “Jesus” out of love and affection became victims of the injustice.